scorecardCheck out Landing, a 'Pinterest for Gen Z', where users make vision boards on everything from their dream wedding with Harry Styles to the first day of school
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Check out Landing, a 'Pinterest for Gen Z', where users make vision boards on everything from their dream wedding with Harry Styles to the first day of school

Lakshmi Varanasi   

Check out Landing, a 'Pinterest for Gen Z', where users make vision boards on everything from their dream wedding with Harry Styles to the first day of school
Landing is gaining popularity with Gen Z users.Landing via @SpaceBean
  • Landing, a vision board site similar to Pinterest, is becoming popular with Gen Z.
  • Gen Z users told Insider they make several vision boards a week on the site.

Stanford business school classmates Miri Buckland and Ellie Buckingham joke that they're like the right and left sides of the brain. When they graduated in 2019, they used their collective mental power to launch a new social media platform.

"We always really cared about this idea of empowering creativity," Buckingham said, "and this idea that creativity is not something you're born with or not, but is something that can be encouraged."

Pinterest, the virtual pinboard site that launched seven years earlier, had debuted on the stock market that April at a $10 billion valuation. The site had banked on millennials' propensity to curate their ideal lunches, outfits, and even lives.

Scroll through Landing and you'll see playful, irreverent, and even otherworldly vision boards from users showcasing everything from New Year's resolutions to their dream wedding with musician Harry Styles.

Gen Z women — who make up somewhere between 80 to 90% of Landing's user base — describe the platform as "Pinterest but with community," the founders said. Where Pinterest encourages an individual approach to image discovery, Landing fosters communal discovery by allowing users to share, comment, and like each other's boards.

The boards are shoppable too, so users can hover over items that catch their eye and follow steps to make a purchase.

Hundreds of new boards are created on the site each day. Buckland, who identifies as a full-fledged millennial, said in August that while millennials might create one or two boards for their dream house, "Gen Z-ers manifest constantly." The founders said the velocity with which Gen Z makes vision boards is unlike anything they expected.

Creating a vision board is akin to making a list of goals, journaling, or writing oneself an encouraging note. By arranging these boards side by side, Landing becomes a visual discussion thread of its users' plans, worries, and dreams for the future. Even when users don't share a common culture or language, bonding becomes inevitable.

Xiomara Vega, a 23 year-old from Mexicali, Mexico, told Insider that every year she makes a board with her resolutions for the new year. She said she sets it as her phone wallpaper, so it serves as a constant reminder of who she wants to become.

Deyana Atanasova, a 22 year-old Landing user from Chicago, told Insider, "I put a chess board on my 2022 vision board, and it's funny because I got a lot better at chess this past year."

Since Landing launched in 2019, 160,000 accounts have been created, 400,000 boards have been made, and 3 million images have been uploaded. The mobile app, currently in beta, will launch in early 2023.

The founders remain tight-lipped about Landing's business plans, but they've already secured $3 million in seed funding. Buckland landed a coveted spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list this year. In the coming year, the founders are planning ways to bring the communities forming on Landing together in real life.

The potential success of a platform like Landing can be read in the tea leaves of the current moment. Twitter is struggling with its identity under Elon Musk. Teenagers are abandoning Facebook and even Instagram. There's a growing opportunity for newcomers to redefine the social media dictates of the past decade.

The founders contend that a new age of social media called "collective media" is on the horizon.

"Gen Z is looking for new homes," Buckland said. "We're one of many different apps that's being built right now for Gen Z to connect over niche interests."

Take a look at more trends that are popular on Landing:

Old Money

Old Money
Landing via user @gossipgirl

Scandinavian Winter Style

Scandinavian Winter Style
Landing via user @woolleyandco

Thrifting in New York

Thrifting in New York
Landing via user @cybersoda

An Ode to Taylor Swift

An Ode to Taylor Swift
Landing via user @gossipgirl

A Harry Styles playlist

A Harry Styles playlist
Harry Styles

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